It's the flock, the grove, that
matters.
Our responsibility is to species, not to specimens;
to communities, not to individuals."
- Sara Stein, 1998, Author of Noah's Garden
The grove is the centre of their
whole religion.
It is regarded as the cradle of the race and the dwelling-place
of the supreme god to whom all things are subject and obedient.
Tacitus, Germania
I frequently tramped eight or ten
miles through the deepest snow
to keep an appointment with a beech-tree,
or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.
- Henry David Thoreau, 1817 - 1862
Each generation takes the earth as
trustees.
We ought to bequeath to posterity as many forests
and orchards as we have exhausted and consumed.
- J. Sterling Morton
Civilizations as early as the
Chaldean in southwestern Asia were
among the first to have a belief in plants that never existed, and the
practice continued well beyond the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Originally, this was done to disperse the mystery surrounding certain
seemingly-miraculous events and to symbolically embody in a physical
form various aspects - wealth, happiness, fertility, illness, etc. Later,
people began to invent "nonsense plants" to enliven the tale of an
otherwise boring voyage, and with the invention of the printed book,
to entertain readers who loved to believe in such fables.
- James L. Matterer, Mythical Plants of the Middle Ages
The clearest way into the universe is
through a forest wilderness.
- John Muir
The groves were God's first temples.
- William Cullen Bryant, A Forest Hymn
Each generation takes the
earth as trustees.
We ought to bequeath to posterity as many forests
and orchards as we have exhausted and consumed.
- J. Sterling Morton
The forests are the flags of nature.
They appeal to all and awaken
inspiring universal feelings. Enter the forest and the boundaries of
nations are forgotten. It may be that some time an immortal pine
will be the flag of a united peaceful world.
- Enos A. Mills
Ay me! ay me! the woods decay and
fall;
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground.
Man comes and tills the earth and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.
Me only cruel immortality consumes:
I wither slowly in thine arms,
Here at the quiet limit,
Here at the quiet limit of the world.
A white-haired shadow roaming like a dream,
The ever silent spaces of the East.
Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.
- Alfred Lord Tennyson, Tithonus
When you enter a grove peopled with
ancient trees, higher than
the ordinary, and shutting out the sky with their thickly inter-twined
branches, do not the stately shadows of the wood, the stillness of
the place, and the awful gloom of this doomed cavern then strike
you with the presence of a deity?
- Seneca
Poetry often introduces a mythological
dimension which reflects the close
connections between the gods and commonly encountered trees. A passage
from Vergil's Georgics, in which the poet enumerates grafted trees and
miraculous growth, incorporates several such mythological references:
myrtles, sacred to Venus; the poplar, crown of Hercules; and the acorns
of Jupiter's symbolic oak, referring to his grove at Dodona. The pine
was held sacred to Pan, the Roman Faunus, and in his Eclogues Vergil
describes the pastoral god's home on Mt. Maenalus in Arcadia.
Propertius stresses the god's fondness for the tree, and Horace,
for his part, dedicates a pine to the goddess Diana in a famous ode.
- John M. McMahon, Trees:
Living Links to the Classical Past
A grove of giant redwoods
or sequoias should be kept
just as we keep a great or beautiful cathedral.
- Theodore Roosevelt
In some mysterious way woods have never seemed to me to be
static things. In physical terms, I move through them; yet in
metaphysical
ones, they seem to move through me.
- John Fowles
It was not that the jagged precipices
were lofty, that the encircling woods were
the dimmest shade, or that the waters were profoundly deep; but that over all, rocks,
wood, and water, brooded the spirit of repose, and the silent energy of nature
stirred the soul to its inmost depths.
- Thomas Cole
God is the experience of looking at a
tree and saying, "Ah!"
- Joseph Campbell
All life is figured by them as a Tree.
Igdrasil, the Ash-tree of existence,
has its roots deep-down in the kingdoms of Death: its trunk reaches up
heaven-high, spreads its boughs over the whole Universe: it is the Tree
of Existence. At the foot of it, in the Death-Kingdom, sit the three
Fates - the Past, Present and Future; watering its roots from the Sacred
Well. It's "bough," with their buddings and disleafings, - events,
things suffered, things done, catastrophes, - stretch through all lands
and times. Is not every leaf of it a biography, every fiber there an act
or word? Its boughs are the Histories of Nations. The rustle of it is
the noise of Human Existence, onwards from of old. .... I find no
similitude so true as this of a Tree.
Beautiful; altogether beautiful and great.
- Thomas Carlyle
A virgin forest is where the hand of
man has never set foot.
- Author Unknown
Going to the woods is going home.
- John Muir
Trees: Lore, Myths, Magick, Legends, Esoterica
The forest is not merely an
expression or representation of sacredness,
nor a place to invoke the sacred; the forest is sacredness itself.
Nature
is not merely created by God, nature is God. Whoever moves within
the
forest can partake directly of sacredness, experience sacredness with
his entire body, breath sacredness and contain it within himself, drink
the sacred water as a living communion, bury his feet in sacredness,
open his eyes and witness the burning beauty of sacredness.
- Richard Nelson
"Then I was standing on
the highest mountain of them all, and round
about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood
there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for
I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit,
and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.
An I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops
that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the
center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of
one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy."
- Black Elk Speaks, The
Great Vision, 1932, p. 36
What will the axemen do, when they
have cut their way from sea to sea?
- James Fenimore Cooper, The Pioneers, 1823
There is something distinctive about the sight and sound of a
human body
falling from the rain forest canopy. The breathless
scream, the wildly gyrating
arms and legs pumping thin air, the
rush of leaves, snapping branches, and the
sickening thud,
followed by uneasy silence. Listening to that silence, I
reflected
on how plant collecting can be an unpleasant sort of activity.
- Eric Hansen, Orchid Fever
My roots are in the
depths of the woods.
- Galle
I am the heat of you hearth, the
shade screening you from the sun;
I am the beam that holds your house, the board of your table; I am
the handle of your hoe, the door of your homestead; the wood of
your cradle, and the shell of your coffin. I am the gift of God and
the friend of man.
- Author Unknown
There are no medium-sized
trees in the deep forest. There are only
the towering ones, whose canopy spreads across the sky. Below, in
the gloom, there's light for nothing but mosses and ferns. But when
a giant falls, leaving a little space ... then there's a race -- between
the trees on either side, who want to spread out, and the seedlings
below, who race to grow up.
A few minutes ago every tree was excited,
bowing to the roaring
storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious
enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees
are now silent, their songs never cease. Every hidden cell is
throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings,
while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves. No
wonder the hills and groves were God's first temples, and the more
they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the
farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself.
- John Muir
I believe in the
cosmos. All of us are linked to the cosmos. Look at
the sun: If there is no sun, then we cannot exist. So nature is my
god.
To me, nature is sacred; trees are my temples and forests are
my cathedrals.
- Mikhail
Gorbachev, 1990
No town can fail of beauty, though
its walks were gutters
and its houses hovels, if venerable trees make magnificent
colonnades along its streets.
- Henry Ward Beecher, Proverbs, 1887
I have always found thick woods a little
intimidating, for they are so secret
and enclosed. You may seem alone but you are not, for there are always
eyes watching you. All the wildlife of the woods, the insects, birds, and
animals, are well aware of your presence no matter how softly you may tread,
and they follow your every move although you cannot see them.
- Thalassa Cruso
Forests were the first temples of the
Divinity, and it is in the
forests that men have grasped the first idea of architecture.
- Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand, Genie du Christianisme,
1802
In the woods we return to reason and
faith.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
God has cared for these trees, saved
them from drought, disease,
avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods.
But he cannot save them from fools.
- John Muir
The cultivation of trees is the
cultivation of the good,
the beautiful and the ennobling in man.
- J. Sterling Morton
When walking through a warm and lush forest
setting one's thoughts can easily
take flights of fancy. It is not difficult to shed the layers of modern life and find
one's more subtle or primitive beginnings. Somewhere from deep within the
spirit
and majesty of each single tree steps forth and at once one can find themselves
transported to a world of shadow and shade.
- Morgan La Fey, Sacred Trees
As Americans, we have become
comfortable with our environment
of concrete, steel, plastics, and artificial fibers, colors, and flavorings
to such a degree that many question whether or not we even need
to focus on a relationship with the creation. We have lost the desire
to seek God and the ability to see God in all things. And perhaps,
we have closed our eyes to the importance of God's creation as
expressed through the forests because we have substituted the
wonders of human creation for the wonders of God's creation.
This form of idolatry should concern us.
- Susan Drake, The Global Forest, 2000
The forest is a peculiar organism of
unlimited kindness and benevolence
that makes no demands for its sustenance and extends generously the
products of its life and activity; it affords protection to all beings.
- Buddhist Sutra
Reforesting the earth is possible,
given a human touch.
- Sandra Postel and Lori Heise
The country where he lives
is haunted
by
the ghost of an old forest.
In
the cleared fields
where he gardens
and
pastures his horses
it stood once,
and
will return. There will be
a
resurrection of the wild.
Already
it stands in wait
at
the pasture fences.
-
Wendell Berry, Window Poems
By the grey woods, by the swamp,
where the toad and newt encamp,
by the dismal tarns and pools, where dwell the Gouls. By each spot
the most unholy, by each nook most melancholy, there the traveller
meets, aghast, sheeted memories of the Past. Shrouded forms that
start and sigh, as they pass the wanderer by. White-robed forms of
friends long given; In agony, to the Earth - and Heaven.
- Edgar Allen Poe, Dreamland
Government cannot close its eyes to
the pollution of waters,
to the erosion of soil, to the slashing of forests any more than
it can close its eyes to the need for slum clearance and schools.
- Franklin D.Rooselvelt
It is not so much for its beauty that
the forest makes a claim upon
men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that
emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and
renews a weary spirit.
- Robert Louis Stevenson
I remember a hundred lovely lakes, and recall the fragrant
breath of pine
and fir and cedar and poplar trees. The trail has strung
upon it, as upon
a thread of silk, opalescent dawns and saffron sunsets.
It has given me
blessed release from care and worry and the troubled thinking of
our
modern day. It has been a return to the primitive and the peaceful.
Whenever the pressure of our complex city life thins my blood and
benumbs my
brain, I seek relief in the trail; and when I hear the
coyote wailing to the
yellow dawn, my cares fall
from me - I am happy.
- Hamlin Garland, McClure's,
February 1899
Acts of creation are ordinarily
reserved for gods and poets.
To plant a pine, one need only own a shovel.
- Aldo Leopold
It's one thing not to see the forest
for the trees, but then to go on
to deny the reality of the forest is a more serious matter.
- Paul Weiss
Nothing is more beautiful than
the loveliness of the woods before sunrise.
- George Washington Carver
Man has been endowed with reason,
with the power to create,
so that he can add to what he's been given. But up to now he
hasn't been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep
disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life's become extinct,
and the climate's ruined and the land
grows poorer and uglier every day.
- Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
The forests are dying, the rivers are
dying, and we are called to act.
To return Earth to harmony is to restore the harmonious principles
within ourselves and to act as responsible caretakers - to save the
forests and the waters for future generations.
- Dhyani Ywahoo
Trees can reduce the heat of a
summer's day, quiet a highway's noise,
feed the hungry, provide shelter from the wind and warmth in the winter.
You see, the forests are the sanctuaries not only of wildlife, but also of
the human spirit. And every tree is a compact between generations.
- George Bush, U.S. President, 1989
What we are doing to the forests of
the world is but a mirror reflection
of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.
- Gandhi
Restoration ecology is experimental
science, a science of love and altruism.
In its attempts to reverse the processes of ecosystem degradation it runs
exactly counter to the market system, to land speculation, to the whole
cultural attitude of regarding the Earth as commodity rather than
community. It is a soft-souled science.
- Stephanie Mills
"... the very process of the
restoring the land to health is the process through
which we become attuned to Nature and, through Nature, with ourselves.
Restoration forestry, therefore, is both the means and the end, for as we
learn how to restore the forest, we heal the forest, and as we heal the
forest, we heal ourselves.
- Chris Maser, Forest Primeval
A grove of giant redwoods or sequoias
should be kept
just as we keep a great or beautiful cathedral.
- Theodore Roosevelt
Invest in the
millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main
crop is the forest
that you did not
plant,
that you will not
live to harvest.
Say that the
leaves are harvested
when they have
rotted into the mold.
Call that profit.
Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in
the two inches of humus
that will build
under the trees
every thousand
years.
-
Wendell Berry, Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more.
- Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, 1818
There are no medium-sized trees in the deep
forest. There are only the
towering ones, whose canopy spreads across the sky. Below, in the gloom,
there's light for nothing but mosses and ferns. But when a giant falls,
leaving
a little space ... then there's a race -- between the trees on either side, who
want to spread out, and the seedlings below, who race to grow up.
Sometimes, you can make your own space.
- Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
Spirituality and Concerns of the Soul
Simplicity and the Simple Life
Pulling
Onions
Quips, Maxims and Observations by Michael P. Garofalo
Haiku Poetry - Links and References
Cliches for Gardeners and Farmers
The
History of Gardening Timeline
From
Ancient Times to the 20th Century
Short Poems and Haiku by Michael P. Garofalo
Quotes for Gardeners
Quotes, Sayings, Proverbs, Poetry, Maxims, Quips,
Cliches, Adages, Wisdom
A
Collection Growing to Over 2,000 Quotes, Arranged by 105 Topics
Many
of the Documents Include Recommended Readings and Internet Links.
Compiled
by Michael P. Garofalo
Distributed on the Internet by Michael P. Garofalo
I Welcome Your Comments, Ideas,
Contributions, and Suggestions
E-mail Mike Garofalo in Red Bluff, California
A Short Biography of Mike Garofalo
Trees IV - Quotes for Gardeners.
This document was first distributed on the Internet on June, 2001